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I’ve written in the past about how badly behaved applications pollute user space with clutter.

Well it seems that a number of apps are never going to “do the right thing” so I’ve devised an effective solution.

I make the folder/files hidden.

This has the effect of reducing the annoyance, and making me feel better .

I’ve done this for a number of folders, some annoying and some useful that I just don’t need access to (but still like in my Documents folder since FolderShare syncs it to all my computers)

How do I know that a product is getting the proper amount of care and feeding?

When they fix and implement the little touches that make a difference.

I've been using IE 8 for a few weeks now and noticed that something that has always bothered stopped bothering me.

What is this feature?

The search box in the upper right corner now updates based on the searches that you do in Google, Live Search etc.

Let's day I fire up the web browser and hit control-E (the shortcut to take you to the search box).

I then type "Ryovac AAA" and get some results. However, I now want to refine my results by clarifying the search a bit.

So in the search page I type "Ryovac AAA Hybrid" and hit search. Now I open a new tab and want to issue that same search so I can browse a different page. Uh oh, the IE search box says "Ryovac AAA".

Well in IE 8 it says "Ryovac AAA Hybrid".

Thanks IE Team!

This feature is actually more useful when you are searching some error message you are getting on your PC and you are constantly refining the search over time and have like 5 different tabs open as you continue your research.

To me this feature is just like the one where IE finally started matching text in menus the way it's supposed to. This feature has saved me countless frustrating minutes.

Since the day I installed Vista on my laptop I have had nothing but unexplained problems with docking and connecting to a projector. Additionally, my Media Center with an Intel Graphics card would also have problems when it would reboot or login and my plasma was off.

I experienced:

• Random changes in resolution from my setting to 1024 x 768 or 800 x 600
• Changes in resolution when my laptop would awake from sleep
• Changes in resolution when docking my laptop

If you go and read about Transient Multimon Manager (TMM) you will learn that you aren't supposed to have any of these problems.

On my old Thinkpad T60 these problems eventually went away when I installed the Lenovo custom ATI driver. However, now I have a Thinkpad X61T which has an Intel GMA graphics chip, similar to the one in my Media Center.

The problems on my Media Center went away when I upgraded to a nVidia card.

However, my laptop is still foobard.

If you read about TMM you will find such promises as:

Transient Multimon Manager (TMM) is a Microsoft Windows Vista operating system feature targeted at improving the user experience of connecting and disconnecting displays, particularly for the mobile user. Currently, although the Microsoft Windows operating system notifies the user of most hardware devices when it arrives, it does not do this consistently for displays. Windows is not aware of the arrival or removal of a display on a desktop system, and the user must manually set up and configure the display through the Windows display control panel or an IHV display UI. On a mobile system, the experience often involves cryptic function keys, a variety of user interface, and possibly reboots. It is particularly inconvenient with a transient display, a display that comes and goes, which is also unfortunately the most common scenario for mobile users.

Windows Vista is committed to addressing this problem through the Transient Multimon Manager (TMM), which enables the automatic detection and setup of displays as they are attached and removed. Furthermore, TMM persists the user's settings on a per-display basis when possible, so that users can move between multiple displays at ease. The goal is to enable users to work with displays in the same stress-free, Plug and Play fashion as with most other peripheral devices today, and alleviate the frustrations of using multiple monitors.

Umm, am I missing something? I am constantly frustrated about this and as far as I can tell, even with Vista SP1, this is still an area that is rife with bugs.

Is it the driver's fault? Generally Intel does excellent work... but I'm starting to wonder... when will connecting a laptop to a display be truly seamless?

There is really no excuse for my laptop not getting this 100% right after it gets to know my monitor (they are on a first name basis) and the 5 or so projectors I use every week.

Anyway, to disable TMM you need to:

1. Press the Windows Key and type "Task Scheduler"
2. Navigate to Microsoft\Windows\MobilePC
3. Right Click on TMM
4. Select Disable

now reboot.

One nice side effect of this is that your laptop will wake from sleep a few seconds faster.

As of yet I can't figure out what feature I am missing, as everything "just works".

Since using Vista at Microsoft I've been victim to more credential prompts in the past year than I have in my life. It really drives me nuts and I had no idea why.

There are two kinds of prompts I see:

1. credentials prompt from sharepoint when opening an office document (clicking a link to a word doc
2. credentials prompt in Outlook when connecting to Exchange

Now in a domain controlled environment you should never see prompts at all unless you don't have access to a resource. Windows takes care of this via Single Signon etc.

Well FINALLY I see David Rasmussen posted an explanation of issue #1, with a link to the SharePoint team blog explaining the issue. Sadly our IT department had no clue about this when I would call them.

The issue is that you must have "Automatically Detect Settings" enabled in your proxy configuration in IE. The problem is that in Hotmail we use some custom proxy servers to communicate with our labs and you need to disable "Automatically Detect Settings" to get to work. I can't tell you how many times I go to that dammed dialog to configure proxy settings. The crazy thing about this behavior is that if you just hit cancel on the credential dialog the document would still open:

With Office 2007 running on Windows Vista, opening an Office document hosted on a SharePoint (i.e. WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007) site results in a prompt for login credentials even if the user is already logged on with an account that has access to the document. Canceling the credential prompt may still (but not always) allow the document to open in read-only mode.

And of course if you wanted to edit the doc you were out of luck.

Issue #2 is related to some configuration issues in our DOMAIN environment that have been addressed, but nasty to track down. We all suffered a lot in the interim (entering credentials as many times as > 100 a day).

Another weirdo Vista problem solved. This is why I hate new Operating Systems. Too many regressions that are very hard to understand let alone get a fix.

My Vista experiences to-date have been nothing short of fantastic. However, I did experience a very annoying problem where my Thinkpad T60 would awake from sleep... but only half way. The screen would never come on.

Very annoying as the problem seem random and I could not reproduce it. Well, I was able to track it down to 2 things.

1) I was not using the OEM version of the ATI driver.

In the past I have not ever installed the OEM Video Driver as it was always "behind" the latest ATI or nVidia one. Well as it turns out, there are occasions where the OEM version has custom bug fixes. Installing the Lenovo ATI driver resolved part of the problem.

I still experienced the problem, albeit much less frequently. But when I did I went berserk. There is nothing worse then seeing all these blinky lights saying your pc is awake as well as all the sounds and stuff working. Well I did some research and stumbled upon this KB Article.

2) I installed a hotfix for bluetooth.

What does bluetooth have to do with standby?

SYMPTOMS

When you wake a Windows Vista-based computer from sleep, a Bluetooth device may no longer work correctly. After this problem occurs, the computer may stop responding when you try to put the computer to sleep again. Or, the computer may stop responding when you try to shut down or restart the computer.

CAUSE

This problem may occur on a system that supports selective suspend if the computer goes to sleep shortly after the Bluetooth device's power is cycled.

Sounds familiar... I installed the hotfix and have been running smooth for 2 weeks now. Getting this hotfix is annoying, you have to email support to get it.